Background: In urological continuing education, communication as a training content has not yet been offered in a structured way. Communication skills are already expected in the first year of training.
Objectives and methods: In the period from November 2017 to June 2018, a descriptive, multicentre cross-sectional study was conducted to identify the factors that promote and inhibit patient-oriented communication from the point of view of continuing training assistants in subject-specific situations (as-is analysis). For this purpose, modified focus groups were carried out in six urological departments with a total of 37 participants. The results were checked in a questionnaire analysis in 62 urological training assistants.
Results: The participants feel competent if they have sufficient specialist knowledge and experience, if it is a routine discussion situation and if they have sufficient time. They experience emotions, bad news and taboo topics as challenging. Facilitating factors are structural support at the workplace and support in the team. Aggravating factors are a lack of communication training, missing structures as well as a compression of the fields of work. They would personally benefit from mentoring, communication training and structured, interprofessional and interdisciplinary cooperation.
Conclusions: This needs analysis provides a basis for the conception and elaboration of a communication curriculum. In this way, the overriding goal of promoting communication competence in urological continuing education can be achieved.
Keywords: Communication; Continuing education; Curriculum; Focus group; Urology.